The Social Organization of Sexuality

Sexuality is a profoundly social experience, and sexual activities are best seen as complex, intricately interconnected social practices. Since the 1950s we have witnessed a great transition in the social organization of sexuality. The impact has been uneven both in the west, the epicentre of the transition, and in the rest of the world, but the impact has been profound.

A democratisation and informalization of personal relations, accentuated both by globalization and cybersex, breaking the connections between sex and reproduction, sexuality and marriage, marriage and parenting, marriage and heterosexuality, and heterosexuality and parenting.The development of a new sense of sexual agency, especially on the part of women, but also among hitherto unorthodox, marginalized and minoritized sexual subjects, most famously LGBTQ identified peoples.

A reordering of the boundaries between what were traditionally seen as public and private activities, leading to the withdrawal of formal regulation from some activities (such as homosexuality) and the emergence of new forms of international regulation (for example, of sexual abuse, human trafficking and child pornography).

A heightened sense of risk, dramatized by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, but at root shaped by the breakdown of traditional patterns of life. This feeds into wider social conflicts, especially contemporary fundamentalisms.

Understanding these cross currents, and their cultural and political impact, is crucial to the ways we respond to questions of sexuality and health, and develop a sense of our needs and common humanity.

Recorded in June 2011 at the 20th WAS World Congress for Sexual Health Forging the Future: Sexual Health for the 21st Century, Glasgow, UK. The World Association Of Sexual Health at http://www.worldsexology.